In this series of blogs on nominations of outsiders to the Legislative Council I focussed, respectively, on profession, public service, Manxness and regionality and personality traits. In this final blog I will seek to bring these threads together.
The paradigm nominee.
Firstly, what is the paradigm nominee? It should be stressed that the survey has considered all non-MHKs/sitting MLCs nominated for the Legislative Council since 1962. Combining these nominees gives us a decent amount of data to look at, but inevitably will be focussed on the long term picture, rather than current trends.
That reservation made, the paradigm nominee for Legislative Council would be:
- A man, although this is much less paradigmatic as we get nearer to the present. Over the entire period, only 18 of the 63 nominees, or a little under 30%, have been women.
- A professional, or retired professional, working in “Business, Media, and Public Service”.
- A person with a record of public service, typically including a career in the public sector, service in local government, or work for a charity.
- A long term resident of the Isle of Man, ideally having been raised on the Isle of Man, or raising their own children on the Island.
- An extrovert engaged with the external world, with a breadth of interests, high group visibility, and enthusiasm; ideally combined with a passion for the proposed role, or work that they could do in the role.
- A conscientious and honest person of integrity.
- A team player able to challenge members of the team.
- An intelligent person with the ability to carry out critical analysis.
Focussing on successful nominees.
Would this paradigm change if we focussed on successful nominees? This is a much smaller group – 13 have been appointed to the Legislative Council from outside Tynwald, so a little over 20% of all such candidates who have been nominated. Care needs to be taken in giving too much weight to what appear to be differences between two small groups.
The paradigm above is largely a good description of successful nominees too. Successful nominees are similarly described as from a professional career background, similarly extroverts with passion, similarly conscientious and honest, similarly team players able to challenge the team, and similarly intelligent and critical.
While successful nominees remained mainly men, the gap between men and women is much smaller when we focus on successful nominees. At 5 of the 13 (or a little under 40%), this gap is half the size of that for nominees; and, as with the nominees, has seen significant improvement over time. So, given the changes I have already identified over time in the nomination pool, if we look at successful nomination to refine the paradigm, I think it would be fair to replace “A man” with “A person”.
Turning to public service, the paradigm successful nominee looks a little different from the nominee pool more broadly, more like a person with a record of public service, typically involving work with or for a charity or other civil society organisation, or work with a government agency. 12 of the 13 successful nominations included reference to public service, a theme which we have already seen as very common in nominations generally. The basis for a public service claim was very varied, but the most common claims were around involvement with governmental agencies including tribunals (5), charities (4), sports or hobby clubs (3), and Manx cultural associations (3). In contrast with nominations as a whole, reference to careers in the public sector were comparatively less common than in nominations generally – 2 of the 13, so 15%, as opposed to 33% of the nominations generally. Also much less well represented in successful nominations was involvement in local government – 1 of the 13, so 8%, as opposed to 28% of the nominations generally.
Finally, turning to Manxness, I suggested that nominations seemed to emphasise a civic nationalism view of Manxness, with long-term residence being key. For successful nominees, long term residence remained a common marker, but descriptions as of Manx ancestry or Manx birth were substantially more common in successful nominees (7 of 13, or 54%) than nominees generally (14 of 63, or 22%).
Causes for concern?
It is easy to see why most of the elements of this paradigm are in play, but it does raise three possible areas of concern.
Firstly, I flagged earlier the mismatch between the proportion of the Manx workforce working as professionals in Business, Media and Public Service, and their representation in nominations to the Legislative Council. If we were to ignore the professional part of the paradigm, and focus on the other elements, would much be lost? In other words, is the nomination pool making enough use of people who otherwise fit the paradigm but are from other work backgrounds? Sustained experience, and leadership of, civil society organisations such as charities, pressure groups, and trade unions might provide strong evidence of other aspects of the paradigm.
Secondly, the dual deployment of a career in the public sector as both professional background and public service could be seen as privileging those with public sector careers over those with private sector careers. Looking at the admittedly small number of successful nominees, however, it seems that MHKs are less accepting of the link between public sector careers and public service when voting than when making nominations.
Finally, there does seem to be a difference between the paradigm nominee’s Manxness (which is mainly based on long-term residence), and the successful nominee’s Manxness (which although substantially based on long-term residence, has a larger element of ancestry or birth). Generally, an emphasis on ancestry or place of birth is seen as problematic – for instance race, which includes ethnic or national origins, is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2017 (see Equality Act 2017 s.10). It should be reiterated, however, that the pool of successful nominees is so small, and the importance of individual personality and characteristics so obvious, that any difference in ideas of Manxness between nomination and vote may well be illusory.
The next round of MLC elections.
Looking forward, what sort of people might we expect to see being put forward for the Legislative Council? I would anticipate seeing substantial number of women and men described in their nominations as:
- People with a record of public service, typically including a career in the public sector, service in local government, or work for a charity or community group; perhaps with an increased emphasis on the latter.
- Long term residents of the Isle of Man.
- Passionate extroverts.
- Conscientious and honest people.
- Team players able to challenge members of the team.
- Intelligent persons with the ability to carry out critical analysis.
I also anticipate significant numbers of professionals, or retired professionals, especially those working in “Business, Media and Public Service”. It would be good to see them joined in the process by those from other work backgrounds.
Peter Edge's Law Blog. 